Blaine's Father
by mybrotherharry
Summary: Kurt spends an afternoon cleaning the Andersons' attic with Blaine's father. Conversation ensues. Warning for allusion to past trauma, and violence. (Off-screen).


Kurt's surprised by how normal it seems. He remembers the first time he had come over to the Andersons' home. He had been introduced as '_Mom, this is Kurt, my boyfriend.'_ to Judy and_ 'Father, I would like to present my good friend Kurt.'_ to Thomas Anderson. Since then, he had spent many afternoons in the big mansion with Blaine and his mom. His father was hardly ever home and the situation had suited Kurt just fine.

Today, Blaine's little sister Bridget had fallen sick and Judy had needed Blaine to drive them to the emergency room. Kurt's waiting in Blaine's room for his boyfriend to come back when he hears noises upstairs. Curious, he looks around and climbs up the stairs.

"Blaine, is that you?" comes Thomas' voice down the stairway leading up to the attic.

"Um, no Mr. Anderson. Its me, Kurt - "

"It is _I_, Kurt," Mr. Anderson corrects automatically, a trait that he has passed on to his son. Whenever Blaine plays grammar nazi, it seems adorable to Kurt, but hearing it from Mr. Anderson only makes Kurt nervous.

"Right," he says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking around the attic. It is covered in boxes piled over one another, the remnants of a life that included someone's childhood once upon a time. Kurt catches glimpses of a broken tennis racquet, the side wheels of a bicycle and what looks like a broken photo frame holding a picture of Blaine in a Spiderman costume. Kurt smiles to himself and says, "I was studying with Blaine when he had to leave with Judy. Um, can I give you a a hand?"

"Yes, thank you Kurt," Mr. Anderson is wearing sweatpants and an old t-shirt. The image is disconcerting for Kurt's mind to process, having only seen Blaine's father in formal shirts and trousers. "I was just clearing up some of the stuff in here. If you could help me move these boxes - ?"

"Alright," Kurt steps forward to take the first box from Mr. Anderson. He thinks that Thomas looks a little surprised to see Kurt working so easily around heavy things. It has happened so often that Kurt's hardly even offended anymore that people think of him as a pansy the first time they meet him. "I um, - I work at my dad's garage. I am used to moving heavy machinery around."

"Garage, wow," says Mr. Anderson, "Right, Blaine mentioned something about that. Probably in his bid to convince me of how manly you are."

Kurt is stunned into silence at this proclamation. He has never interacted with Mr. Anderson alone before. They have always had Blaine to buffer things between them. All Kurt knows is that this man - Blaine's father - has never been very supportive of Blaine's sexuality. And that Blaine tries desperately hard to please him.

"Umm," is Kurt's smart and sophisticated reply.

"But he doesn't get it, does he?" says Mr. Anderson. He pulls up a box and sits down on it, gesturing to Kurt to sit too. There's an icebox at his feet, from which he pulls out a chilled bottle of beer for himself and passing a juice box to Kurt.

"Is he - is Blaine wrong in thinking that you wouldn't want him dating a boy?" asks Kurt cautiously, not sure why they are even having this conversation.

"Of course I don't want him dating a boy," says Thomas and Kurt's heart sinks. "I don't want him to live a life of struggle and hatred. I don't want him to wait for a blood test result every six months. I don't want his head to be bashed in by a baseball bat in the middle of a deserted parking lot. Yes, I hate that my son's gay but I don't hate him."

"You should tell him that, Mr. Anderson." Kurt's angry now. He has heard the thinly veiled _'my love for you is making me homophobic'_ speech before and nothing irritates him more than people trying to find justification for their prejudices.

"You don't think that is a good enough reason for me to be unsupportive of him," says the older man, staring at Kurt's face in deep thought. Its not a question, it is a statement.

"No sir, I don't," says Kurt, appalled by his own courage. "With all due respect, you could have done a_ million_ other things to overcome your fears of how society would treat Blaine. So what if everyone else threw stones at him, at least he would know that his father loves him."

There is no reply to that and Kurt waits as Mr. Anderson processes his statement.

"Blaine knows that I love him." Its more of a question than a statement and Kurt can see the uncertainty in his eyes.

"I am sure he does, Mr. Anderson," says Kurt, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Maybe that's why he follows my father around like a puppy dog every time he is over at my place."

"Burt," says Mr. Anderson, "Your father's name is Burt. He is a mechanic, runs Hummel Tire & Lube and took Blaine to see that Spiderman movie last month."

Kurt notes how similar Blaine and his father actually are. He has seen Blaine recite everything he knows about a person while trying to recall them. Blaine's a bit obsessive compulsive that way.

"Yes, sir," says Kurt, "My dad took him. I am not much into superhero stuff. Well, at least not as much as Blaine is. I guess nobody is as much into superheroes as Blaine is."

That draws a chuckle out of the man. "You should have seen the Clark Kent phase he went through for a while. Pretended to be a reporter for the school paper until his teacher actually made him one."

That story is so adorable, so Blaine that Kurt can practically see his boyfriend pull such a stunt. They both laugh, enjoying the quiet companionship.

"Well, Blaine has mentioned your father. A lot, now that I think about it."

"Yes, they get along like a house on fire."

" I would like to meet him sometime. Maybe compare notes on how he deals with raising a gay son."

"I don't think you will find a sympathetic audience in him, sir," says Kurt, "You see, he is very, very proud to be raising a gay son."

The announcement hangs in the air between them, the implication that Thomas Anderson is not proud of his gay son left unsaid but heard anyway. They are sitting side by side, hips touching on a cardboard box, sipping beers. Kurt turns his face to look at Mr. Anderson and is surprised by the deep sorrow in his expression. He had expected to see rage there, maybe even disgust, but not sadness. Kurt recognises Blaine's deep hazel eyes in the older man's face. Kurt hates that expression in Blaine's eyes and the similarity throws him off.

"If I - " Mr. Anderson closes his eyes, clears his throat and starts again as though the very act of speaking takes him great effort, "If I ever made Blaine think that I am not proud of him, that I do not love him, then I clearly have failed as a father. But the truth is Blaine is my son. Do you know how painful it is, how utterly terrifying it is to be told that your child may die, Kurt?"

Kurt is afraid to even breathe too loud, lest he interrupt this very important moment for his boyfriend's father.

"Do you know how utterly helpless you feel when you watch a part of your heart bleed out on a hospital bed? And there is nothing you can do to control it? Do you have any idea - any idea - the agony that comes with seeing your son's dreams come crashing around his ears?"

"Its too painful, Kurt. So, of course I want different things for him. I want a life for him."

He gets up, off the box and walks to the shelf on the far wall. He lifts a huge box labelled "Blaine" and puts it at Kurt's feet.

"Open it," he says, turning away.

Kurt gingerly brushes the dust off the lid of the box and carefully opens it to peer inside.

Numerous sketch pads, sheets after sheets of charcoal drawings, art supplies and paints, trophies and certificates, bottles of colour so old that you can see the cracked dried cake of paint settled at the bottom. Kurt finds a newspaper clipping with the headline, "Ohio's Very Own Picasso" above a photgraph of a smiling Blaine. Words like _prodigy_ and _genius_ catch Kurt's attention. He opens the topmost sketch pad.

The face of a very beautiful boy meets him. The lines of the pencil clearly highlight sharp, high cheekbones and deep eyes. In fact, Kurt finds the boy's face in nearly every page of the book. There is just one other picture of tiny Bridget sleeping on the sofa and a sketch of Blaine's mother bent down at the oven.

"This is - ?"

"Michael Forster," says Mr. Anderson, his back to Kurt. "All the months leading up to the dance, Mike was Blaine's muse. Every time he picked up a pencil, only Michael would come pouring out. It drove his art teacher nuts."

Kurt knows Michael Forster as the boy who took Blaine to the Sadie Hawkins dance, the boy who died that night in the parking lot, his blood all over Blaine's white shirt. Kurt's known for a while now - there is a reason why Blaine calls Mike Chang 'Michael'. Because, as far as Blaine is concerned, the only _Mike_ in his life died that night.

Kurt picks up another sketchbook almost unconsciously. His mind is still stuck on the haunting image of Michael, trying to put together how this sweet-looking boy could have gone through that trauma, could have taken repeated blows to the head with a baseball bat while protecting his friend.

More pictures of Judy this time. Sketches of Thomas with Bridget on his lap, sketches of a girl in a cheerleader uniform - _Sadie_, Kurt mind supplies. Sadie was Blaine's friend in middle school, the girl who stopped talking to him after he came out. Sketches of a sunflower field, of a football ground, of a television playing a football match - Blaine loved, still loves football.

"He was such a talented kid. He loved his art, went to his classes and got good marks. It was his medium of expression. After the dance, there was too much brain damage. For weeks, he couldn't move his right hand. He was so terrified, but went through physiotherapy like a champ. We were very proud of him. Six months later, we found that while he could hold a mug and write with a pen, he couldn't get his fingers to listen to his brain, that he couldn't stroke with a paintbrush the way he used to."

"He still tried though. Thats my Blainey boy, he was never one to give up. He did everything he possibly could - but then, one day, Judy and I come home to find all his art boxed up. He told us that he was done. Then, he requested my help in putting away everything in the attic. I come up here sometimes to see it all again, to see glimpses of the boy he was. I don't know what you see in him now, what people see in him as he sings and dances on stage or gets top grades, but I still see my Blaine in these sketches. One time I framed one and put it in the den - he lost it. He raged and yelled until we took it down."

Mr. Anderson turns around and Kurt can clearly see the tear tracks on his cheeks. He is lost for words. Kurt had thought that he had known his boyfriend, but now he thinks he hardly knows him at all.

"You must think me ungrateful. Think of Cameron Forster - she doesn't have her son asleep in the next room each night. At least, my Blaine is alive and breathing - I am so ungrateful that I am crying over some art. So what if Blaine can never draw again, at least he is alive. That is what I tell myself every single day, Kurt. But the fear - it is so crippling, the fear that every time he walks out the door, I think of the hundreds of sick bastards who hate my son for just being alive. I think of the baseball bats that are still waiting to come out and bash his head in. Some days, Judy and I flinch every time the phone rings."

"Mr. Anderson," says Kurt, his voice raw with an emotion he cannot recognise, "Blaine thinks you hate him."

"What?"

"Sir, I understand that I am way out of line here, but Blaine and I seem to do this a lot with each others' fathers, so I am going to say this anyway," says Kurt, taking a deep breath, "What you need , what Blaine needs is an honest conversation. Invite him to the car show next weekend over in Columbus, call him Blainey boy and spend some time with him."

"It is not that simple, Kurt," he says, shaking his head. "Use of a nickname won't win me his affection."

"Sometimes, it is that simple. And I have it on good authority that he misses being called Blainey."

"Really?"

"Really," Kurt says with the confidence of a man in the know.

"He really loves you, you know," says Mr. Anderson. Kurt flushes but is spared the task of replying when he hears Blaine's voice.

"KURT! I am back! Are you up there ? "

"Coming, honey!" Kurt yells back, "Thanks for the drink, Mr. Anderson."

Kurt turns to the door to go back to Blaine when Mr. Anderson stops him with a hand in his shoulder.

"Call me Tom, kiddo. Call me Tom."

_**A/N: Reviews are adored. Please leave a review.**_


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